Living
by ingrid-matthews
Summary: How Gaeta got that tattoo Spoilers 2.8


Of course, I couldn't resist ...

Title: Living

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Up to BSG: S2x08

Summary: How Gaeta got that tattoo ...

**LIVING**

**by ingrid**

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"You've never thought about getting one?"

Starbuck's voice is lazily amused. Not laughing at him, not yet, but Gaeta shrugs uncomfortably anyway.

"It's not hygienic," he replies, regretting the words the second they leave his mouth.

Because Starbuck is definitely laughing now. Big, honking laughs, the kind that rattle her entire body, making taut muscles quiver.

It's not a very feminine laugh, not sexy in the slightest except for the way she couldn't give half a shit if she was coming across as attractive or not.

That _was_ pretty sexy. "Felix, you need to get out more."

He sighs. Get out more, when the only way to "get out" of this hole is to walk down one of the dark hallways that lead to a nearby airlock.

Yeah, right. "Your deal," he grumbles, sliding the deck over the table to her.

She picks up the cards and shuffles them with an expert hand. "Seriously," she says, between puffs on a somewhat soggy cigar. "A tattoo isn't any more _unhygienic_ than sex, but if you've never had that either ..."

"I've had sex!" he says indignantly, maybe just a little _too_ loudly.

A miserable flush fills his face at the amused stares he's met with and for the first time in a long time, Gaeta's angry. Really angry. "Just frakkin' deal, Starbuck," he growls from between clenched teeth. "And don't complain when you lose."

"I don't complain, baby," she simpers, cards slipping from her quick hands, landing in front of each player in a neat little pile. "Because I don't lose."

"There's a first time for everything," he replies snippily.

Little does he know how right he is. The game progresses quickly, the cards deep in his favor. It's a first for him, beating Kara so handily.

It's also a first for him getting so piss drunk on ambrosia he could care less about his rank, his post or ending up in the brig on the wrong side of a misdemeanor unruly charge.

Damn, but this stuff is _sweet_, Gaeta thinks, swigging a bit more from his nearly empty glass. Sweeter still as Starbuck pours it into his mouth straight from the bottle every time he even _considers_ putting a stop to the madness.

Pretty soon he finds himself far away from the officer's lounge and in some backroom arms locker, where an engineer (Carcasi? Niabe? Who the frak knows?) is tying his arm down and warning him not to yell as the ink-filled needle edges closer .. closer ...

"I want a cat!" he cries, laughing as Starbuck shushes him with another mouthful of ambrosia, delivered via a wet, silly kiss. He splutters and laughs some more, not struggling as she and some other officers hold him down while the "artist" gets to work. "Make him sleek," Felix insists. "And looking over his shoulder. Because you don't know where the cat is or what he really wants."

"No one ever knows," Starbuck purrs against his ear. "You are so hot right now, you know that, Felix?"

He laughs harder, even as he feels the needle bite into his flesh, repeatedly. It takes a long time but he falls asleep halfway through, jolting awake when a lit cigarette gets stuck to his lower lip, the bright red ash tipping against his chin, burning it.

Gods almighty! When did he start smoking?

Whatever. It's all good, even as he chokes against the stinging smoke filling his sensitive nostrils. Pulling the cigarette between his fingers, Gaeta decides he likes how it feels and looks, even how it burns his virgin lungs. Smoking is bad for you, so they all say, but smoking was going to be good for him.

Good for someone who's never lived a day outside the Box of Right. The Box of Doing What He Should Do -- that terrible tyranny of honest living he'd been slave to for far too long.

Everyone's laughing at this point, whether it's at him or with him, Gaeta doesn't care. The tattoo hurts like Hades, but that's all right too.

This is what real living's all about, isn't it? About being stupid sometimes, about making mistakes and waking up with pains resembling a Cylon slicing your head off, piece by piece ...

Isn't that what life's all about?

The buzz of the needle finally comes to a stop. A makeshift bandage placed beneath his gray tank soon gets bloody and this bothers Gaeta a little, but pretty soon he's in his own rack, the surrounding world quickly fading away into a sweet, fuzzy haze.

Sweet, until the next morning when he awakes to a throbbing pain in his head that makes death by Cylon centurian a wishful thought. His wallet is empty too and before he can curse Starbuck into the Underworld good and proper, he catches sight of his own reflection in a nearby mirror.

The bandage covering his tattoo has fallen off, revealing something sleek and dangerous beneath. His hair is mussed, his eyes are dark and angry, giving him a dangerous look as well.

There's a pack of matches and cigarettes on his nightstand, left there by one of Kara's cohorts. He picks them up, giving a cursory glance back to the mirror before slipping a smoke between his lips. It takes a few tries to light it, a few more tries to inhale without a choking fit, but once he gets the hang of it, it's not all that bad.

All right, it tastes awful, feels even worse, but all in all, Gaeta isn't as displeased with himself as he thought he'd be, a single night debauchery now held firmly beneath his polished military belt.

He's died too many times to count. Died when the worlds ended, died when he made more than one almost-fatal mistake too many, died when he realized that his life's ambitions were all a terrible dead end, only meaningful to the generations to follow.

So what was wrong with living a little?

Smiling around the bitter smoke, Gaeta pulls himself up and admires the cat gracing his chest. It looks back at him slyly, leaving him to wonder where it's been ...

And where, someday, he might be headed.

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fin

I cannot tell a lie ... reviews are loved to wittle bits. :D


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